Even though it’s nothing I can ever escape, the ocean of
ancestors and descendants is always changing.

Whether it is rolling ahead of me or else disappearing into
the mist, it is never the same twice.

I am a part of it, yet separate.

I am a Nelson, a Williams, a Kratz, a Morgan, a Ladd, a
Brignoli.

I come from places I have never been. I am the result of
people who never will walk the earth again.

I am a creation of the times, the land, random chance, and
who knows what else.

I am the same as my family and I am unique from everyone
else who ever existed or will exist.

Who will rise before me?

Who will inherit my world? My life? My work?

I will never know, and I will never know exactly what I will
leave behind.

Even if I know my work, I will never know its
interpretations, its repercussions, its meaning given by countless others.

That is the way the ocean will always be.

Born of despair,

A depression ravaging the land

Resources were rare

But living on was for the determined

Nazi Germany was also born of the destruction

The holocaust, the darkest of nights.

D Day and my grandfather learning aviation

Demon destroyed after climbing to incredible heights

Two bombs that rocked the world.

Graduation, marriage and Korean service

The hesitant American flag still unfurled

The cold war creeped into existence.

My parents are born.

Hippies, the first laser, and first memories

Martin Luther’s leaves us forlorn

The moon landing’s and more glories

My father’s programmable calculator

The United Nations was founded

A house, a meeting and love grows greater

Nixon’s resignation was sounded

My grandfather becomes a bailiff

The VCR comes into being and spreads.

Then he goes back to being a sheriff

Apartheid brings deathbeds

Civil rights blossom and scatter seeds

My parents come to Sacramento

My fathers’s first job and he succeeds

College and my grandfather a widow

Disaster at Chernobyl

My grandmother, my parents.

Two marriages, both love symbols

Hubble and furtherance of science

The first internet connection

The world under a net of communication

A new house, a great decision

A new life, in a great nation

Extending backward, never ending fog, peer and see a ways
farther, it must go on forever.

Lost in an ocean.

My family has tendrils that nudge at my hair, curl at my
feet. I am forever followed by them, but they remain thin and nearly invisible.

It’s in the way I smile, and the shape of my eyes.

Even though it’s nothing I can ever change, my family and my
heritage is always changing. Whether it is expanding or being lost, it is never
the same twice.

I am a part of it, yet separate. I am a Nelson, a Williams,
a Kratz, a Morgan, a Ladd, a Brignoli. I come from places I have never been. I
am the result of people who never will walk the earth again. I am a creation of
the times, the land, random chance, and who knows what else.

I am the same as my family and I am unique from everyone
else who ever existed or will exist.

Who am I to tell.

Who will rise before me? Who will inherit my world, my life,
my work? I will never know, and I will never know exactly what I will leave
behind. Even if I know my work, I will never know its interpretations, its
repercussions, its meaning given by countless others.